A lack of consistent and transparent regulations governing concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) is underscored by a report released today by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP) and the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). The report is entitled Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: A Survey of State Policies.

The survey is just one aspect of PCIFAP’s 2½-year study of the effects of industrial farm animal production on public health, the environment, rural communities, and animal welfare. Because of its familiarity with state regulatory issues, the Commission asked NCSL to conduct a 50 state survey of the appropriate state regulatory agencies in hopes of gaining a better understanding of the regulations already on the books, as well as whether the states have the resources available to implement those mandates.

“State and local governments have developed a patchwork of regulations typically using federal regulations as a basic guideline that can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. That may result in imbalanced and ineffective enforcement,” said John Carlin, Commission chairman and former Kansas Governor.

The survey highlights the patchwork of regulation from state to state, and in many cases, a complete lack of regulation in areas that are essential to protecting public health and the environment. While many states do have regulations beyond federal requirements, it is clear that the regulation has not caught up with the CAFO model of food animal production. Kentucky, for example, is contemplating whether or not to even continue regulating CAFOs. And other states, like New Mexico, have limited policies on animal feeding operations and rely on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate CAFOs in their states. What is actually being done to regulate CAFOs within the EPA delegated states is obscure. South Dakota refused to respond to the survey and Mississippi responded only minimally. It should be noted that all information requested from state agencies is supposed to be available to the public.

The survey also revealed that several states have made strides in their attempt to mitigate the potential threats posed by CAFOs. Oregon, for example, has gone beyond regulating just those facilities that fit the federal definition of a CAFO, and thus regulates more than double the number of animal feeding operations that federal law requires. California, a state that faces ongoing water quality issues, appears to be working diligently to curb any runoff from CAFOs into water sources. While this survey showed that some states appear to be setting comparably robust examples of CAFO regulations, the survey did not address the actual enforcement of their respective policies.

Putting Meat on The Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America

Rising populations. Skyrocketing commodity prices. Strains on natural resources. Is this our Malthusian moment?

The Age of Scarcity?

Was this crisis avoidable?

George Soros: I think it was, but it would have required recognition that the system, as it currently operates, is built on false premises. Unfortunately, we have an idea of market fundamentalism, which is now the dominant ideology, holding that markets are self-correcting; and this is false because it's generally the intervention of the authorities that saves the markets when they get into trouble. Since 1980, we have had about five or six crises: the international banking crisis in 1982, the bankruptcy of Continental Illinois in 1984, and the failure of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, to name only three.

Each time, it's the authorities that bail out the market, or organize companies to do so. So the regulators have precedents they should be aware of. But somehow this idea that markets tend to equilibrium and that deviations are random has gained acceptance and all of these fancy instruments for investment have been built on them.

There are now, for example, complex forms of investment such as credit-default swaps that make it possible for investors to bet on the possibility that companies will default on repaying loans. Such bets on credit defaults now make up a $45 trillion market that is entirely unregulated. It amounts to more than five times the total of the US government bond market. The large potential risks of such investments are not being acknowledged.

The Financial Crisis: An Interview with George Soros

Paul Kedrosky:

There are huge cross-currents on the Microsoft/yahoo deal after this week's earnings news from the two companies. What we discovered, in effect, was that what we have here are two drunks holding each other up.

Microsoft/Yahoo: Dead? Dithering? Drunks?

Data governance entails a universe of concepts, principles, and tools intended to enable appropriate management and use of the state’s investment in information. Part I on data governance presents an introduction that describes the basic concepts. Governance, and particularly data governance, is an evolutionary process. It begins with an understanding of the current investment and then manages that investment toward greater value for the state.

Managing Information As An Enterprise Asset

Guillermo del Toro is directing "The Hobbit" and its sequel, New Line Cinema announced Thursday. The 43-year-old filmmaker will move to New Zealand for four years to make the films back-to-back with executive producer Peter Jackson.

Guillermo del Toro to direct 'The Hobbit' and sequel

Is this the silver lining to the global food crisis?

It seems the message is finally getting through. In parts of Helmand Afghan farmers are this year sowing wheat instead of poppy - not because they have suddenly been converted to the argument that producing heroin is not in the national interest.

Market forces have been the deciding factor - with wheat prices doubling in the past year, and the street price of heroin falling, it is now more cost effective to grow wheat.

At last there are signs of progress being made amidst Afghanistan’s battle-scarred landscape.

Afghanistan swaps heroin for wheat

Consider the case of aspirin. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Bayer aspirin and store brand aspirin are identical products, but that Bayer costs twice as much because some consumers believe (falsely, in this example) that Bayer is better. Would we expect markets to eradicate this price difference? Since the Bayer brand name is trademarked, it is not (legally) possible to go into the business of buying the store brand aspirin and repackaging it in Bayer bottles. This inability to transform the store brand into Bayer prevents one method arbitrageurs might use to drive the two prices to equality. Another possibility for arbitrageurs would be to try to sell the more expensive Bayer aspirin short today, betting that the price discrepancy will narrow once the buyers of Bayer “come to their senses.” Short selling works like this: an arbitrageur would borrow some bottles from a cooperative owner, sell the bottles today and promise the owner to replace the borrowed bottles with equivalent Bayer bottles in the future. Notice that two problems impede this strategy. First, there is no practical way to sell a consumer product short, and second, there is no way to predict when consumers will see the error in their ways. These problems create limits to the forces of arbitrage, and in most consumer goods markets, the Law may be violated quite dramatically.

The aspirin example illustrates the essential ingredients to violations of the law of one price. First, some agents have to believe falsely that there are real differences between two identical goods, and second, there have to be some impediments to prevent rational arbitrageurs from restoring the equality of prices that rationality predicts. Can these conditions hold in ? financial markets, where transactions costs are small, short selling is permitted and competition is fierce?

The Law of One Price in Financial Markets

Does being on the Colbert Show really provide a bump—a critical leap that vaults a writer, or a politician to superstardom?

The Colbert Bump is Real

Corporate prediction markets work like this: Employees, and potentially outsiders, make their wagers over the Internet using virtual currency, betting anonymously. They bet on what they think will actually happen, not what they hope will happen or what the boss wants. The payoff for the most accurate players is typically a modest prize, cash or an iPod.

The early results are encouraging. “The potential is that prediction markets may be the thing that enables a big company to act more like a small, nimble company again,” said Jeffrey Severts, a vice president who oversees prediction markets at Best Buy, the electronics retailer.

Betting to Improve the Odds